Time to get drastic with plastic: The OutdoorCureOnline Guide to reducing single use plastics

Time to get drastic with plastic: The OutdoorCureOnline Guide to reducing single use plastics

If you do nothing else with your Monday than read, share and most importantly – act on this blog post, you can go to bed happy and smiley – we promise! Reducing the use of single use plastics is a topic that comes up several times a week at the OutdoorCureOnline HQ. The team are constantly looking for new and different ways to reduce their use of plastic or are finding out and researching new information to help us make changes. Sometimes we even get a bit competitive about it *looks about shiftily* First off let us give you the stats: within 5 years, there could be 1 tonne of plastic for every 3 tonnes of fish in the ocean. That is horrifying. A single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade. Just one bag. Even more scarily, we recently realised that up to 91% of plastic waste is not recycled! So even if you think all the plastic you are using is being used again, the reality is that it is not! So what can you do to reduce your plastic consumption? Luckily, we have our handy guide to thinking differently about plastic use to get stuck into.

7 ways to be eco fantastic rather than boring plastic:
1) Save your plastic bottles, wash them out and discover if you have a refill station nearby (try local health food stores). You can stock up on washing up liquid, shampoo, fabric conditioner etc. And, it’s amazing how excited you can get over finding the best fit plastic bottle for something!
2) Look in the kitchen at what you use simply for convenience. Clingfilm was ours, so we stopped and funnily enough, there are plenty of alternative ways to store food. Reusable tubs (extra points if they are precycled from something else you brought) or glass alternatives. We favour the stick it in a bowl and pop a plate on the top approach for ease – much easier than trying to find the lost end of the clingfilm.
3) Don’t put your fruit and veg into plastic bags at the supermarket – keep them loose or take your own bags.
4) Don’t bother with the bottled water. It really is not any healthier. Do your research and if you really must, buy a water filter instead!
5) Check and monitor the amount of plastic going into the bins each week. If you can precycle and be as imaginative as you can. Feel free to share any ideas with us!
6) Get your milk delivered. Simple.
7) Check your teabags as some contain polypropylene, a sealing plastic, to keep the teabags from falling apart. So even if you pop them in the compost, they cannot be fully broken down. There are plenty of biodegradable and compostable teabags out there so do your homework!
Let’s get on it OutdoorCure-ers! Leave your ideas in the comments.
The OutdoorCureOnline Team x